


Life is Just a Dream Within a...

by Ashtree11, Dikhotomia



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Astral Mimics, Blood, F/F, Major character death - Freeform, The Foundation, but only temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:09:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashtree11/pseuds/Ashtree11, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: “I can see why I needed field training before tagging along with you,” was Emily’s attempt at a joke. Her hand shakes while loading a fresh magazine into her pistol, meanwhile, a flurry of bullets scatters and impacts against the rock wall they had managed to take cover in. From what she could glean of the situation in the split second before the onslaught of fire and Jesse pulling her back against the wall, these weren’t ordinary Hiss agents. Or perhaps they weren’t Hiss at all.An expedition into the Foundation goes awry for the Director of the FBC and the Head of Research as Astral Mimics ambush them.
Relationships: Jesse Faden/Emily Pope
Comments: 13
Kudos: 74





	Life is Just a Dream Within a...

**Author's Note:**

> From the duo that brought you They Get Nothing Done: The Fic, comes This Baby Can Hold So Many Feelings In It. Hope you all enjoy  
> Jesse written by the badass Dikhotomia  
> Emily written by Me :3

“I can see why I needed field training before tagging along with you,” was Emily’s attempt at a joke. Her hand shakes while loading a fresh magazine into her pistol, meanwhile, a flurry of bullets scatters and impacts against the rock wall they had managed to take cover in. From what she could glean of the situation in the split second before the onslaught of fire and Jesse pulling her back against the wall, these weren’t ordinary Hiss agents. Or perhaps they weren’t Hiss at all.

They weren’t Hiss. She knew from the exact moment she saw them, from the exact moment she had grabbed Emily’s arm and pulled her back, pressing her against the wall while she herself leaned right beside her, peering around the side of it. Emily’s attempt at a joke might have made her laugh if she wasn’t perpetually stuck between fear and rage. Jesse knew what this was, knew what was going on. “It’s a good thing too,” she throws over her shoulder, sparing her half a glance before leaning around their cover and opening fire. “I just didn’t think we’d get swamped right out of the gate  _ this bad _ .” She debates with herself as she ducks back behind the wall, watching the Service Weapon as it pulsed in her hand, reloading. 

She should tell her. Should have told her.  _ Fuck them, I told them I’d handle it. So much for ‘trusting me’ to deal with it, huh? _

“Sounds like a day in the life of a Director to me, I’m just along for the ride.” Hearing about Jesse’s many encounters with the Hiss in the Oldest House, it was only natural that Emily would prepare herself for a similar situation when she asked to tag along on her exploration. But she certainly wasn’t expecting  _ this _ . 

If these weren’t Hiss that left one other option, and she had just written a report on them as per Jesse’s request. Which begs the question: what had they done to piss off Astral Mimics? This particular area didn’t seem all that significant, aside from the Control Point they passed by along the way. Perhaps there was something up ahead? The mimics’ hostility reminded her somewhat of her tests on the Nail and how it didn’t like to be probed, like a Rubik’s Cube fighting back against her while she actively tries to solve it.

Emily fires off a few shots while Jesse waits for the Service Weapon to recharge. While she hits her targets, she misses more than she’d like. Firing under pressure was leagues different from firing at the Bureau’s obstacle course. “Do you think they’re protecting something?” she asks, trying to speak over the sounds of shattering rock and gunfire. 

She can see Emily out of the corner of her eye as she moves, turning her head slightly as the gunfire roars in her ear and leaves it ringing for a space of seconds, just adding to the cacophony around them. “Protecting something?” She parrots, pursing her lips. “No.” They weren’t protecting shit, Jesse had already dug in too much, overstepping a dozen boundaries and pissing The Board off at her while she did it. Even if she had somewhat smoothed it over by letting them think she was going to behave at the end of it, she hadn’t really. She had plans, and those plans didn’t involve letting some Eldritch Abomination pull her strings. 

Unfortunately the price Jesse was (indirectly) paying now was the target on Emily’s back. She leans back around the wall, driven further by the anger simmering hot and violent under the surface, expression drawn to her usual stoicism. She fires again, bullets burying themselves into the head of the nearest mimic. “They’re…” she trails off, muscles in her jaw flexing with the tension of ground teeth. “They’re after you.” She pulls back again, glancing back behind them out of paranoia.

_ Yea. I should have told her sooner. _

She’d been snuck up on enough times she learned to look every direction, no matter where the concentration of enemy forces were. “The Board wasn’t happy with you poking at the Nail,” she continues, shoulder pressed against the stone. “So I was informed that I needed to stop you.” She shrugs, flashing a strained smile at her. “Well, I didn’t and now we’re here. I had thought that if you were with me they wouldn’t actively try to kill us  _ both  _ but, well. Apparently I was wrong about that too!”

“After me?” Yet another thing she didn’t expect. So the Rubik’s Cube is trying to kill her now for trying to solve it. Great. Is this what the agents at the Panopticon felt on the regular basis? Though they haven’t made the Board’s hit list so maybe she’s got a one-up on them. “I’m strangely flattered and terrified at the same time.”

She wanted to ask why Jesse hadn’t told her sooner. If this was another case of ‘needing to protect her’ like what Darling did before the Hiss invasion she was thoroughly starting to get pissed off. Absently, her hand drifts over her HRA. She’s not a child, why does everyone feel the need to keep things from her?  _ Especially _ things pertaining to life or death scenarios. 

But asking that isn’t going to get them out of this situation. They need a plan of action, not an argument that will do more harm than good in the middle of a firefight. So instead she says, “What do we do then?”

“Shoot our way out,” Jesse replies, ignoring the guilt eating away at her. “Or backtrack.” At this point they’d end up doing both, since she knew the mimics wouldn’t just leave them alone if they started backing away, and Jesse didn’t want Emily to get shot, or hurt at all if she could avoid it. “Both,” she affirms, glancing as a familiar noise clatters down by her feet. Her teeth click, breath hissing between them as she rears back, power burning at her fingertips as she hauls the grenade up off the stone and hurls it back. 

“Here!  _ Catch! _ ”

Emily freezes at the sight of the grenade rolling towards them; and she could only gape in awe as Jesse reacted in less than a second to throw it back at their enemies. The subsequent explosion sends a nerve wracking wince through her and a lingering ring in her ears.

When she recovers, she pulls the trigger on an encroaching mimic. It falls in a heap as the bullet shoots through its head with debris and residue trailing behind it like a dark comet. That’s one down amongst  _ dozens _ .

Jesse could only do so much on her own between keeping the mimics at bay, looking after herself,  _ and _ making up for Emily’s shortcomings. She shouldn’t have come here. She’s a liability waiting to happen, a weight dragging Jesse to a halt where she needed to move to survive. 

“Retreating sounds like the best course,” Emily eventually agrees. The sooner they get out of this the better. If Jesse got hurt because of her…

Jesse got hurt on the daily. She’d been shot, cut, kicked, shattered bones in falls and been left to lay on the ground, stunned, agony ringing through her while the few elements scattered around did their best to knit her back together (though being able to levitate now had stopped  _ that _ particular occurrence and she was thankful for it). She’d been thrown around and stomped on, impaled—the list was long and she had lost time and memories for some of them. Pain wasn’t new to Jesse, she had the scars to prove it, had the chronic throb in her shoulder she was never getting rid of.

If Jesse got hurt today, it would be because of her own carelessness, not because of Emily. If Emily got hurt today, it would also be because of Jesse’s carelessness, and she would never forgive herself for it. “Let’s get the hell out of here, then,” she says, ripping a chunk of stone out of the nearby wall and launching it into the crowd. It crumbles on impact, a few of the mimics breaking down and shattering with it, scattering onyx and gold filigree across a shockingly red backdrop.

The Service Weapon retreats on a gesture and Jesse exhales sharply, fingers and muscles tensing as she rips more stone and debris up, surrounding the both of them as best she could. “Go,” she says, voice strained. “I can’t hold this forever.” Her hands splay, trembling slightly under the onslaught of bullets.

There’s a moment of pause as Emily witnesses Jesse’s power. She’s never heard of or seen another Director performing as many feats as she has. It’s truly incredible. But while strong, the woman has her limits.

When she sees the trembling in Jesse’s fingers, she pushes herself off from the wall, adrenaline pumping into her legs as she prepares herself to run. “You better be behind me when I do, Jesse,” she says, too weak to be a threat like how Marshall would enunciate; she wasn’t a Ranger. But she hoped that at least it was strong enough to leave no room for arguments.

Jesse flashes her another grin over her shoulder, sharp and assuring. “I will be,” she says, shifting her footing. With it the debris shudder, a shimmer rolling through as the power she holds steadily begins to destabilize. The air cools the sweat that pricks on her skin and stings in her eyes. She breathes even, forcing a total concentration she normally wouldn’t hold into keeping the shield up. Something starts to ache in the back of her mind, sharp and burning and she puts it aside, arms shifting, drawing back towards her body.

As soon as Emily started running, she would throw everything she held at the mimics and follow. 

Damn that smile. Despite the pit of dread settled in her stomach that warned her of worst case scenarios, somehow seeing Jesse smile like that made it all seem okay.

She turns on her heel and makes a mad dash back down the stone pathway they had followed. She has no idea where she was going but as long as they were getting far away from here and maybe even somewhat closer to the Crossroads, that’s all she needs. The booming and colliding of rocks is amplified and echoes through the narrow corridor, thundering in her ears alongside her frantic heartbeat.

The mimics are sure to follow. If they were truly after her, where in the Foundation was safe? She and Jesse were miles away from the entrance back to the Oldest House there’s no feasible way they could—No, they can and they  _ will _ . After all, it wouldn’t bode well for the Bureau to lose both their Director and Head of Research in one go.

Just as Emily rounds around a bend in the path, a mimic and the barrel of its gun stare her down. She tries to skid to a stop but can’t. Panic surges into a startled cry, and before she knows what she’s doing, her arm swings forward and her finger squeezes the trigger.

She’s not a freeshooter, not like Jesse, but there’s no time to aim down sights. Without the extra support, the gun’s recoil sends a painful shock down the length of her arm, knocking her aim off kilter. Luckily though, her target was close enough for the bullet to just clip its shoulder, disrupting its own line of fire. A chunk of the mimic goes flying, yet it makes no sound at the impact. The only reaction was a slight stumble backwards and a lithe arch of its back until it’s righted again. 

Had she been an idle observer, the mimic would’ve been left to carry on with its motions. However she was anything  _ but  _ idle as her momentum from the run retakes its course and she speeds right along, shoving the mimic away with all her might. She doesn’t even think of the consequences of coming into bare contact with an alien entity, nor does she think to stop and finish it off despite her training urging her to do so. All logic and procedure had been thrown out the window.

_ They can spawn anywhere _ , was the only coherent thought to pass through her adrenaline addled mind. That, and  _ Keep moving! _

She hears more than sees the moment Emily takes off, sand and stone skidding under the other woman’s heels, steps an echoing clatter amid the constant barrage against the failing shield. “Alright,” she hisses, shifting her weight. “Time to bury you assholes.” Her hands shift again, fingers tensing and releasing, muscle coiling steel tight in her arms; quiet and still like the calm before a storm. Then she moves, stone and sand and energy exploding outwards and away from her as she throws herself backward, propelled by a need to  _ move.  _ The world slows down in the interim, a half registered clash of stone and onyx raining down on the floor in her peripheral as she pivots on a heel, letting her momentum carry her—

Then she’s off like a shot, the burn in the back of her mind worsening to a fever flinch. Polaris flares, warning of an overuse of her abilities, a harried thrum underneath the pound of her heart and the rush of adrenaline. “I know,” she whispers, taking a corner sharp enough that the rock catches her sore shoulder. “But I don’t have the luxury of taking it easy right now.” 

_ She hears Emily’s cry, the reverberating crack of a gunshot— _

Jesse pushes herself faster, praying to a God she doesn’t believe in that she won’t round a corner to Emily bleeding out on the stones, a bullet hole in her head.  _ I swear if I do, I’m going to make the Board pay for it, I will pull them down from their little throne in the sky if it’s the last thing I do. _

She rounds the corner, but the sight is all the more alarming; a mimic half risen from it’s fall, holding an onyx spear in it’s hand, arm drawn back to throw—and Emily, running like hell down the tunnel away from it, exposed. “Emily!” She shouts, thought process pushing from logic to panic. “Emily get down!” But there’s no time, no time to hope Emily gets out of the way as Jesse races by the mimic, trying and failing to pull up enough power to counterattack. The pain flares and Jesse nearly stumbles, vision sparking and blurring.  _ Too much— _ She needed time she didn’t have, seconds she would usually spend hiding behind a wall to let herself recover.  _ I’m going to burn out— _

The spear hits her—the impact a dull, wet,  _ crack  _ as it tears through flesh and bone and muscle. Jesse freezes, stunned, pain flaring white hot and choking. She takes a few stuttering steps as the sickly sweet taste of copper fills her mouth and spills red and sticky on to the stone and sand at her feet. Slowly she turns, lifting the Service Weapon and firing, one shot wide, the second shot home.

“ _ Fuck—” _ she chokes on the blood filling her lungs and welling in her throat, reaching out to grab the wall beside her, eyes dropping to the stone now at home in her chest.  _ “Fuck, fuck fuck—” _

Her name clamors through the tunnel as well as the warning to get down. Jesse’s warning. Instead of obeying, she whirls back around and...

She sees more than she hears; sees the long spear of black sheened stone, now glistening red with her blood as it protrudes from the center of Jesse’s chest.  _ Fatal _ . She watches as Jesse’s eyes widen, her jaw silently falling open upon impact and the flecks of blood that escapes there. The sand below becomes stained, then scuffed as she follows the way Jesse turns and fires two shots to kill the mimic.

The mimic that  _ Emily _ should’ve killed.

_ My fault. All my fault. _

“Jesse...” came a whimper. It takes a second longer to realize that it came from her. The gun slides from her grip, landing with a pitiful  _ clack _ against the ground as she sprints towards her. Amidst Jesse’s torrent of choked and gurgled curses, her stomach churns and bile rises in her throat. She swallows it down as she reaches for Jesse’s shoulder and steadies her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she rambles. Mindlessly, she brushes the loose fringes of Jesse’s hair out of her eyes and strokes down her cheekbones. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore how cold and clammy they were against her hand. The few glowing elements that surrounded the dead mimic rush to heal the Director, but they virtually did nothing to help.  _ No, please no _ . 

Her thoughts race, sifting through first aid procedures—staunch the bleeding  _ too much blood _ don’t remove the object  _ it’ll kill her _ keep her upright  _ it’s fatal  _ keep her awake—at the speed of light until it all becomes a dull buzz in the back of her mind. Her words gain a mind of their own as, “I’m sorry, Jesse, I’m sorry,” falls from her lips in an unending stream. What can she do? What was there to do? She imagines a table full of her buzzing thoughts being overturned in a rage. There must be  _ something _ . 

_ Think, Pope, think, damn you! _

Wind whistles in her ears. A distant, ethereal chime rises to meet it, the same sound that permeates outside of the Board Room and rings through the halls of the Oldest House. A Control Point. And it wasn’t far.

She takes Jesse’s face in her hands, trying to meet her half lidded, glassy gaze. “Jesse, I need you to walk with me, okay? Just stay with me now, we’re going to get you to a Control Point. You hear me?”

She’s hot and cold in equal measures, swinging from one extreme to the other while her vision swims and her legs threaten to dump her into the sand. She leans heavier against the stone, pain a constant white hot and consuming reverberation from the center of her chest; each motion she makes simply pulls the stone embedded there, each motion making more blood ooze out of the wound and from between grit teeth. Her ears buzz, breathing wet and ragged and rattling and she knows that she’s not going to last.

Not when the elements that jump to her do nothing but ease the pain slightly. Her head dips slightly, pinpoint awareness focused into something dull and fading.

**_< Why interfere/Become collateral?>_ **

Jesse slips, legs giving out underneath her moments before Emily is there, pressed close beside her and touching her, speaking to her in words Jesse can’t fully comprehend past the haze clouding her mind, past the cotton in her ears. She blinks once, forcing her head to turn enough to look at the woman beside her, any attempt to speak coming out instead as a wet cough.

_ (Sorry, I’m sorry--) _

She smiles, trembling and unfocused and shakes her head. “Okay,” she whispers. “S’okay.” She doesn’t blame her, because this isn’t anything new to her, the sensation of deja vu pulling her like the chill that’s started to nip at the tips of her fingers and her toes, tingling and stiffening.

She doesn’t feel well...

**_< Director answer/Explain>_ **

“Fuck you!” she spits, the dizzying sensation of vertigo pulling at her as she looks up. “I told you I would handle it!” For a moment there’s nothing but a dull hiss like radio static from rooms away but still in her ears. She flashes back and forth on a blink, fingers grasping uselessly at Emily’s arms, legs refusing to do more than hold her up. 

Control Point. Walk. Her brows knit, lips pulling in a frown. “Kay,” she slurs, gripping the other woman’s biceps. “C’n try.”

**_< You did not ‘handle’/Resolve it/Instead you defied/Disregarded us>_ **

“You know  _ why? _ ” She seethes. “Because she’s too important to the bureau to lose! And don’t fucking tell me to ‘just replace her.’ It might seem easy to you, but it’s not!” Jesse straightens, glaring up at the pyramid looming above her. “I know you want to keep all your secrets, but if we’re going to work together?  _ This  _ can’t continue.”

The silence _ resonates _ .

Emily shifts her hold on Jesse until she’s pressed flush against her side, moving Jesse’s limp arm over her shoulders, and wrapping her own arm around Jesse’s waist. Her clothes are wet from sweat and streaming blood, making it difficult to get a secure grip on her. Emily had to put every ounce of strength into her limbs to keep Jesse upright. Her training recommends a fireman’s carry in times of wounded comrades, but with a chunk of rock sticking through Jesse and Emily’s limited strength, this will have to do.

“You’ll be okay,” she grits through her teeth, already shaking with effort, dizzy with the smell of potent copper and dust filling her senses. Then her voice weakens with a plea. “Please keep talking to me. I need you awake.”

The first step forward could hardly be considered one. Her hand, slicken with Jesse’s blood, damn near slips away and her knees, exhausted from running and unused to carrying anything over fifty pounds, teeter on the brink of buckling beneath her. She persists with a grunt and a harsh exhale though, there’s too much at stake to let her weaknesses take hold. She keeps her head high and facing forward with the stretch of tunnel laid out before her.

The second step is stronger. Not nearly a full stride, but a start of precious momentum. _It_ _should’ve been me_ , her rueful mind bites. Despite Jesse’s slurred reassurance to the contrary, it didn’t smother the fire of self-hatred. Why didn’t she kill that mimic while she had the chance? Some genius she was, going and getting her one true friend impaled through the chest on their first expedition together. Tears prickle the corners of her eyes. _All my fault_.

“You’re not dying here, Jesse,” she promises through the shaky intakes of breath and she takes another step. “I won’t let it happen.”  _ I  _ can’t _ let it happen _ . Another step. “Next time we’re bringing a medic along, okay? Or we’re both taking first aid lessons. Trial and error, that’s all this is, yeah?”

She finds a rhythm in the midst of their shared shambling and the Control Point’s chimes grow louder. What would’ve been a welcome reprieve was killed as she feels her muscles burn and exhaustion seeps into her bones. Jesse is practically draped over her, still bleeding profusely and becoming heavier and heavier by the second;  _ deadweight _ . Emily holds her breath and listens for Jesse’s. It’s faint. Too faint. Glancing over through the awkward angle and proximity of their faces, she sees blood dribbling down her chin.

“Jesse? Are you still with me?” she asks, frantic.

She’s everywhere and nowhere, thoughts rolling around in her mind like a lottery machine, each number an image. Red stretching through water, blue fractals dancing like a rainbow kaleidoscope along white washed walls; a doctor in her white coat speaking to her in a voice Jesse can’t hear beyond a dull hum. She lives twenty-six years of her life in a single sepia toned second, washed out and burning away at the edges.

She’s cold and tired, blinking back to the present to a body that doesn’t want to respond, watching numbly as her feet drag along underneath her. Her brows knit, words slurred and indiciperable as she attempts to respond to something she thinks she heard Emily say. It takes her a long moment to understand where they’re going, digging through the fading chaos of her memories for a freeze frame moment.

Right. The Control Point. She can feel it now, feel the thrumming pull like strings attached to a puppeteer's fingers, gently urging her forward as Emily drags her along like the deadweight she is. She struggles with herself, limbs twitching slightly in an abortive attempt to move with the commands she tries to give them. “Tired,” she mumbles, coughing. “S’tired.” She wants to lay down and close her eyes, to let the numbness and the cold seep fully into every inch of her body and allow sleep to take her.

She loses seconds, each blink taking longer, taking more effort, each breath a little shorter and pausing longer in between. Everything feels like lead, bones and muscles and sinew too much for her to even think about trying to use or lift. 

A frantic voice, asking a question Polaris mirrors.  _ Are you still with me? _

_ Are you? Are- _

_ Am I? _

She slips, submerging underneath the pull of shadows and ice, sensation and awareness leaving her with the last breath that hisses past her lips.

The lack of an answer is deafening. 

The last pass of breath from Jesse’s bloodied lips that follows it is earth shattering. And all at once the world comes crashing down. Emily’s legs finally fail, sending both of them down to the unforgiving stone floor. 

“Fuck!” Her elbow shoots out to shield her fall, and the searing pain running through her is coupled with the full weight of Jesse’s limp body on top of her.

“Jesse?” No answer. “Jesse!”

With the last of her strength, Emily scrambles out from beneath her and cradles Jesse, one hand between her shoulder blades to hold her up and the other on her cheek. She doesn’t care that she’s being covered in her blood. She scans her sickly pale face desperately for a reaction, a twitch of muscle, that damn reassuring smile that would tell her everything was going to be okay even when it wasn’t.  _ Anything.  _ “Jesse, please,” she begs. Again, no response.

A choked sob wracks her frame, and the tears that had merely prickled her eyes before now consumes them in a burning haze. They streak down her cheeks, following the line of her jaw, dripping off her chin and landing on Jesse’s with a soft  _ plip _ .

Emily pulls her body up and into a tight embrace, ignoring the spear pressing against her. Nothing could compare to the unbearable ache in her chest or the suffocating constriction around her throat. 

Jesse’s name rips its way through anyway in a wail that echoes down both directions of the tunnel. Her fingers thread through her red hair, curling, and clinging to her and the impossible hope that it was perhaps enough to keep whatever lingering life was left inside. All the while she sobs into Jesse’s neck, nosing against where her pulse should be but wasn’t.

_ This can’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening.  _

She wasn’t fast enough. To add insult to injury, the Control Point laid just beyond her peripheral vision. Why couldn’t she have been stronger for Jesse? “I’m so sorry,” she whimpers for the umpteenth time that day.

Then the air around her shifts, pulling her attention but not enough to make her miss the way Jesse’s body...flickers.

Her brows knit in confusion before she blinks, certain that it was her teary eyes playing tricks on her. But when her eyes open, the weight against her body lifts and Jesse vanishes.

Everything stops. Her arms remain suspended, cradling nothing as a cold numbness dowses every fiber of her being. Her fingers, once full of the sensation of Jesse’s coarse hair and supple leather jacket, now twitch against air. Thunder roars in her ears while her breathing halts for seconds, maybe even minutes she wasn’t counting. 

Though the tears keep flowing, she stares blankly at the now empty space before her, unable to move, speak, or even think or question what the fuck just happened. Jesse was...  _ gone _ , leaving a puddle of blood on the stone and the stains on Emily’s disheveled clothes and trembling hands.

The ache in her chest was now agony, like pieces of her had been torn away, making it all the more harder to breathe.  _ It should’ve been me. _

She has no idea if there were more mimics on the way. Logically they would’ve long since caught up with her while she was carrying Jesse, but logic isn’t reigning here. If they came now, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Instead she just sits.

_ Whirr—click—snap—reset; deft fingers winding back tape on a reel. Again. Again. Again. _

_ —violent red tearing away, black and twisting stardust— _

**_Wake up._ **

Jesse does, breath drawn into aching lungs, vertigo leaving her shifting her weight to stabilize herself on the uneven stone. Her foot drags, sand and loose rock scuffing underneath her boots. Slowly she looks up, around, squinting into the dull light of the cave tunnel.

_ Why was I here?  _

She searches, digging through fractured pieces of memory for an answer. This morning, a discussion about coming down here, talks about an expedition to follow up on some parts of the study. Jesse’s brows furrow—had she gone on ahead to clear things out? 

_ Her foot lands in something wet—the faint splash almost a gunshot reverberating in ricochets off the walls. _

Quickly she turns, body a tension line of nerves—then stops dead. “Emily?” she whispers, confused. “What—”  _ blood, there’s so much blood. _ “Are you—no, that’s a stupid fucking question.” She wasn’t, that much was clear by the amount of blood around her, on her, but from a cursory glance it didn’t look like it was hers. “Are you hurt?” she asks anyway, desperately needing to be sure as she takes the last few steps to where the other woman sits.

“Em? Hey—”

Her reaction is slow, muddled with doubt and shock. The voice that perked her ears with questions of concerns for her wellbeing sounds like Jesse’s, but it couldn’t possibly. She just disappeared in her arms. Emily is still processing that. Are hallucinations another symptom of shock?

She curls her fingers into her palms, feeling the stiffness of the crusting blood on them. Then, she turns her head towards the Control Point, squinting through the residual tears that haven’t quite fallen yet. The figure approaching her, speaking to her, looks like Jesse. There’s a noticeable lack of a rock spear through her chest, her leather jacket was as pristine as ever and a healthy pink dusts her cheeks.

“Jess—” she tries to say, but her voice cuts into a harsh croak. Her throat is like sandpaper, dried from inhaling sand and stale air, and strained from crying as much as she has. But perhaps it was for the best. Speaking her name might shatter the illusion before her eyes. Jesse was gone. The being before her was too good to be true. Perhaps it’s an afterimage conjured by her psyche and amplified by the Foundation; there was still so much she doesn’t know about it and its properties. Or maybe this was another one of the Board’s methods of breaking her. She will admit this was more effective than any gunshot wound she has been threatened with. 

_ Are you hurt? _ Maybe-Jesse asks.

“Yes,” she answers. She _ is  _ hurt, but not physically. She feels her throat start to constrict again, the torrent of sobs that pour from her broken heart are on the brink of overtaking her once more. Yet in the midst of the resurging internal pain, a desire takes root and she’ll blame grief later for her next words, her request to this... ghost of a dear friend. She wants to feel okay, just for a moment more before she needs to leave this place and deal with the bureau without Jesse beside her. “Smile for me one last time.” 

The request twists a new kind of confusion through the disorientation still hanging there.  _ One last time?  _ Her expression freezes, brows knit, lips parted slightly on words she hasn’t found yet. A second, two—three—stretching between Emily’s ragged breaths and her own, stretching until Jesse thinks it might snap and shatter the world around her. “What?” she whispers, taking a step closer, reaching.

_ Blood, a sense of disarray in the shattered pieces she’s swept into the corner of her mind— _ The film burns away, vision blurring. She’s there, she’s elsewhere, two moments in time frozen and split through.  _ Pain, hitching breath and copper on her tongue— _

“Oh,” she breathes, lifting a hand to press to the side of her face, fingers digging into her forehead, her next words nearly lost to the roar of silence around them, “I died again…”

Inhale. A hand dragging down her face.  _ Fuck. _

“Emily,” she says, slow, quiet. “Emily I’m so sorry, I never wanted you to see that.” She bends down, easing herself closer like she was handling a spooked animal, reaching out to touch Emily’s shoulder. “I’m here. I’m back.” 

_ Died...again... _

This has happened to Jesse before. She’s not sure how to feel about that truth. The touch on her shoulder was electric, it was startling and, more importantly,  _ real _ .

“Jesse...” Of its own volition, her hand raises and reaches for the one on her shoulder. Warmth blossoms beneath her fingertips as she traces the veins, making her way across the back of the hand until she fully grasps it.  _ Real _ . “You—”

She chokes, and the exhale that is squeezed from her is unsteady with relief, dizzying with respite. Her other hand shoots out to grab the collar of Jesse’s jacket and pulls. Their bodies collide in a bone-crushing hug. Without meaning to, she finds herself back in the crook of Jesse’s neck, nosing the pulsepoint and taking comfort in the steady thump that meets her there.

Jesse doesn’t move, gaze steady on Emily’s face while the other woman works through the situation unfolding in front of her. Of all the insanity that went on in this place, someone dying and coming back to life like some sort of mythological figure was probably still pretty out there. But she had always been an outlier from the very moment she walked in here and picked up the gun. She had more power than any Director before her, had a healing factor she wasn’t sure anyone had heard of before, not to mention she could use the Control Points in a way that had stunned and confused everyone who knew about it. 

Coming back to life was really just kind of another notch on the level of shit Jesse could do. Of course, while a lot of her Paranatural ability carried to the outside, the healing and the coming back to life would be applied. Death in here was paid for with large chunks of her memory and a lingering sense of trauma that hung above her like a sword of damocles, waiting for the one moment it would fall upon her and keep her down for good. Death outside would be permanent.

She breathes in as the warmth of Emily’s fingers trace the back of her hand, eyes flickering to the sight briefly before she was looking back at her, guilt twisting ugly and sour in her chest at how wrecked she sounds. “Me?” she says, smiling, a little unsteady, the tremble at the corners of her mouth something she has to fight to keep from being obvious. Her eyes widen slightly as Emily’s other hand fists in the collar of her coat and  _ pulls _ , her breath escaping her in a startled hiss with the sudden shift of gravity and the solid impact of their bodies. She reaches out with her free hand, fingers ghosting the stone to adjust to the new angle, then lifts, curling around the back of Emily’s neck. “Hey, hey it’s—”  _ it’s not okay, but it is. _ She thinks, turning her head to press a kiss to the other woman’s temple. “I’m sorry Emily, I’m so sorry.” Sorry she can’t remember what happened, sorry that it even happened in the first place and that she had to be there to witness it.

_ Of all the things I’ve told her about, this was the one I didn’t want her to know… _

The most damaging one. She supposes it’s a blessing she can’t recall every moment she’s died, but she always knows she has in one way or another. A new scar, an obvious bloodstain, the gigantic blank that sits in her mind each time she comes back to a Control Point, dizzy and filled with a sense of  _ wrong.  _ And every time she reaches back into the fathomless inky black of it she comes back with nothing, nothing but water through her fingers.

She doesn’t ask because she doesn’t want to know, almost sure she’d find the answer later when she had a moment to herself to search her skin for a new mark. But for right now she stays here, curling herself more securely around the other woman in her arms, unphased by the cold stone digging into her legs and the blood might very well soak into her jeans and her shirt. Something to deal with later.

“Don’t scare me like that again,” Emily blubbers in between her sniffling and begrudgingly extracts herself from the safehaven of their embrace to finally wipe her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I thought I lost you.” 

She dares to press a hand over the spot where the spear had pierced. In her mind’s eye, an afterimage of the onyx shard flashes before her, though it’s gone just as quickly. She wonders if there was any trace of the horror she had witnessed hidden beneath the now mended jacket and shirt.

“You don’t remember what happened,” she says, half questioning half assuming. Jesse’s initial furrowed confusion, and her slow realization were indicative enough. If she were in a right state of mind, perhaps she would’ve pursued the line of inquiry with proper questions, and she does begin to feel her old self returning little by little. But her body is tired, has been wound up tight and suddenly released from pressure in a span of minutes. Questions can wait.

Instead, she goes to brush at Jesse’s bangs, both for the physical reassurance of her presence and to better see the light in her blue eyes; commit them wholly to her memory for they were hauntingly absent before and she needs that image banished. But then the dark crimson discoloring her fingers enters her vision and she retreats with a curling flinch and a grimace. “We should get back. That’s enough excitement for one day, I think.”

“I don’t remember,” Jesse answers anyway, straightening slightly. “I never do.” She reaches up briefly to rest her hand atop the one Emily lays against her chest, touch gentle and solid.  _ This must be where _ , she thinks, making a note to check to see what sort of ugly scar she’d be sporting there now.  _ Just another to add to the tally. _

The flicker of motion pulls her back and she watches as Emily’s hand lifts to touch her. She doesn’t miss the dried and cracking blood on her hands, expression tightening at the way the other woman flinches and grimaces and pulls away. “Yea,” she agrees, pushing herself back up to her feet. “I think so too.” 

She extends her hand to her, smiling. “You need a shower and some rest after all of that…” she says, trailing off before adding, “I’ll stay with you if you want.” She didn’t have anything else she needed to do and after all that—well, she allowed herself to assume a bit, to extend the offer just in case.

The sight of Jesse’s smile almost breaks her again. She had been so close to living in a world where she would’ve never seen it again. Working at the bureau for as long as she has, and surviving through the Hiss invasion has made her desensitized to deaths around her. And though Jesse is virtually immortal within the Oldest House and its Foundation, it doesn’t erase the reality that for agonizing minutes, she was in pain and dying until she was gone. Emily had lost her...

She takes the proffered hand, Jesse helps her stand, and that should’ve been her cue to let go.

She doesn’t. She can’t. Her hand is trembling too much and the only thing keeping her steady is the warmth of Jesse’s calloused palms pressed against hers. Normally she’s the type to ramble and work her way through anxiety attacks. Hell, her first reaction to the Hiss invasion was to get straight to work on learning more about them, going so far as to convert the Board Room into a temporary lab. 

But this time she was silent, only able to muster up a muted nod at Jesse’s offer. She doesn’t want to be alone, not right now.

The effect her death, even temporary as it was, has taken on Emily is profound. The other’s silence speaking volumes, the trembling of her hand making Jesse squeeze it a little tighter. She doesn’t care that Emily doesn’t let her go, more than willing to let her hold onto her for as long as she needs. For as long as it takes her to work through all the things she’s likely feeling now.

What she does do is step closer, free hand coming up to rest against Emily’s cheek, thumb sliding soothingly across the bone. She hated seeing her like this, so broken down and afraid, caught between relief and terror in a way that sticks in Jesse’s ribs worse than any pain she had felt so far. “Hey,” she whispers, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together. “It’s going to be okay.” She was here, she was back, and she wasn’t going to go anywhere any time soon. “I won’t go anywhere else today,” she adds, another tiny, fleeting smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “You’ll have me all to yourself, okay?” No office work, no random meetings, just the two of them.

As long as Emily needs.

Emily’s breath hitches as the words envelop her in a tender shroud. It was as if her anxious tremors were from frigid weather all along and Jesse’s voice was a warm crackle of fire. Their joined hands stay that way, and the world falls away as their foreheads are pressed together, and all there is is Jesse. Alive, reassuring, and oh so gentle.

She leans into the palm caressing her cheek, gingerly raising her free hand to hold it there. Her eyes fall shut, basking in the contact before turning her head just enough to plant a kiss against Jesse’s palm. “Thank you,” she murmurs. Her eyes flicker half open, finding the curve of Jesse’s lips where a ghost of a smile comes and goes. 

Coupled with their proximity, it stokes a Want that takes no time at all to smolder into a Need. For what she does next, there is no grief to blame this time, though their shared brush with Death does drive her. The hand that she had placed over Jesse’s shifts, following the length of the woman’s arm until it reaches her shoulder and retakes the jacket’s collar. This time, she doesn’t pull with desperation like she did before. Rather, she coaxes. Even with their faces mere inches apart, it’s a slow, aching draw; slow in case Jesse wants to stop her. A plethora of apologies and excuses hung at the ready in the back of her mind if she is. Perhaps she should stop herself. Her emotions are everywhere, this is irrational, there could be mimics still lurking; so many reasons to just  _ stop _ . 

And she does, leaving their lips just a hair’s width apart—waiting, with bated breath.

Another smile flickers as Emily’s lips find her palm, as her voice finds its way from wherever it had been caged while the panic had gripped her.  _ There she is _ , she thinks, fingers still moving gently against her skin, waiting. She thinks that perhaps she’s lingered long enough, that maybe she should slip away and get them going again. Yet she doesn’t. She stays just where she is, instincts in tune to everything going on around them. Every breath either of them takes, every ambient noise from the cave; a stone falling, a breeze hissing through the sand and echoing distantly through a smaller tunnel. The helpless thunder of her own heart picking up pace the longer they stay so close. Then Emily moves and for a second Jesse freezes, feeling the path of her hand down her arm to the collar of her coat, lips parting on a faintly surprised sound as the other woman coaxes her closer... _ stops.  _

All it would take is a tip of her head, a subtle incline of her chin. They’re so close, sharing breath that washes warm and present over her lips with each exhale. Slowly her fingers shift, slipping from her cheek to curl gently around the back of Emily’s neck. She follows the motion then, closing those few inches, lips ghosting, her own breath hitching. “Emily…” she breathes, so quiet it’s lost underneath the blood rushing in her ears. Kissing her is a realization, a snap of a spark to wood that blazes immediately, all the feelings she had suppressed and ignored and shoved aside rising with the flame. It’s tender, chaste, but so much more all at once. 

She’s wanted this for so long, but denied herself out of fear. Wanting so badly to cling to what she had in a desperate attempt to keep from losing it, from accidentally pushing Emily away if the other woman didn’t feel the same. In all her life she’s never had someone like her, someone she could trust, could rely on...could—

_ Love.  _

It hits her in that moment, the landslide realization of feelings an almost overwhelming thing. It pulls her under, washing over her like a tide at noon, warm and welcoming.  _ Okay _ , she thinks, caught between terrified and elated at the newness of it all,  _ okay. _

Aside from her employment at the Bureau, Emily’s life has been simple. She needs very little and wants even less. Either one that she may harbor has been skewed and adjusted to fit the priorities of the bureau and the pursuit of knowledge that enticed her the moment Dr. Darling sought her out in her physics lecture all those years ago. Through the days of frustration and countless hours spent trying to make breakthrough after breakthrough for the phenomena that landed on her desk, it was the crusade for clarity that kept her going, kept her returning to the Oldest House for more. 

Kissing Jesse was like that clarity that she’s always relentlessly pursuing. But where those instances often result in her slumping back in her chair in relief—a feeling that existed paradoxically to the triumphant exhilaration coursing through her—this was a moment that she could some up in two words:  _ of course. _

Why she dove head first into completing her field training to accompany Jesse on an expedition; why losing her for those agonizing minutes had wrecked her to her core; why living in a world without her was not only wrong but unimaginable. The answer has been staring at her for who knows how long and it took her until now to finally see, finally  _ feel _ the clarity that has been waiting for her to catch up. She loves Jesse. 

_ Of course. _

The wide smile that sneaks its way to her lips breaks the kiss, but she maintains their closeness. She brushes her nose against Jesse’s as her shoulders shake with a quiet chuckle at her own ridiculousness.

It takes her a second to catch up when she feels that smile, the eyes she had unconsciously let slip closed opening to see and feel the way Emily chuckles. She isn’t sure exactly why she is, but Jesse can’t help joining her, her own almost muted in comparison beyond the subtle tremble of her own shoulders.  _ This day has been a fucking ride,  _ she thinks, leaning back slightly to look at her better.

It’s a lot, anxiety and adoration warring in equal parts, leaving her jittery and too warm. “What?” she asks, the question curled around her laughter. “What’s so funny?”  _ Why am I laughing too? Did we finally actually go insane? Is this what it feels like? _

_ If it is, I can live with it.  _

Emily shakes her head, still laughing, still holding Jesse’s hand. After a confrontation with Death, this dip into Insanity is small potatoes. “This. Us.” Then she centers herself, her laughter tapering into a lighthearted sigh as she wraps her arms around Jesse’s waist and lays her head against her chest. “What a fucking day.” 

It felt like a vast understatement but it was all she could conjure in her myriad of emotions and racing thoughts. Just another day at the Bureau by every definition of the sentence. It’s a strange sensation to wish that the events had gone differently yet also not want to change anything at all with how intricately connected they all were to reach this moment of long overdue bliss. Perhaps Determinism wins this round, a notion that will irk her when they return to the Oldest House, though the promise of a shower and a semi comfortable couch to sprawl herself on was almost enough to distract her from that inevitability.

And, more importantly, Jesse is here. The comfort of knowing that she  _ will _ be with her on the return trip back makes Emily squeeze the woman tighter. “I think we’ve stalled long enough,” she eventually points out, starkly contrasting her firm embrace. “The others will start to worry.”

Jesse snorts hearing her own thoughts voiced so similarly by Emily after they had crossed her mind.  _ No shit _ , she thinks, holding the words behind her teeth as the other woman fits so perfectly underneath her chin, pressed as close as they could get with the HRA still in the way. The change in proximity makes her realize how exhausted she actually is even as she slips her arms around her in response, resting her cheek against the top of her head. It weighs on her, bone deep and dragging, adrenaline and excitement and anxiety all draining away and leaving her depleted on her usual seemingly endless energy reserves.

A shower and a nap sounded really  _ really  _ good right about now. But first they had to find the willingness to move, to part and make the trek back through what was left of the cave network and back upstairs to the House itself.  _ And look how far we’ve gotten, truely a record breaking speed.  _

She doesn’t want to shatter the moment though, suddenly afraid that as soon as she pulls away she’ll wake up from some rollercoaster of a dream in her makeshift corner of the board room or on the couch in her office.  _ It’s real,  _ she tells herself, it has been from the moment she got up, to the moment she died and came back, to right now, standing here with Emily in her arms. Shared feelings out in the open. 

“Yea,” she says finally, smiling as Emily squeezes her tighter. “We should head back,” she agrees, finally forcing herself to pull back slightly, resting her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “Before Marshall comes looking for us.” And boy she did not want to have to explain all of this to her too, the blood, the distinct lack of wounds on them both despite it.  _ Good work Faden, you moved about two inches, now move the rest of it.  _

It turns out to be harder than she anticipates, and she ends up standing right where she is, letting the seconds drag by until the very real possibility of Marshall rounding the corner with a team of rangers and a stern lecture gets her to move again. “Take two,” she says, offering her hand.

She winces at the reminder of having to face Marshall at some point. She could almost picture the woman seeing her the way she is and her admonishing somewhere along the lines of  _ Damn, Pope. Did you keep  _ any  _ of that in you? _

Explaining it all will be... a time, one that will likely result in her being suspended from field work. But as Head of Research, she’ll take it more as a strongly advised suggestion.

She takes Jesse’s outstretched hand without a second thought, noting with amusement at the clear hesitation in the woman’s posture. At least she wasn’t alone in not wanting to let the moment end.

Still, it must and there will be more moments like this. 

And so she gestures at the tunnel stretched before with her free hand. “After you, Director Faden,” she says with a voice a mocking octave lower and a shiteating grin.

She’s half turned away when Emily’s words hit her and she stops, deadpanning and staring off down the tunnel like it had offended her in some severe way. “Dammit Pope,” she says, turning back to look at her in time to catch her shiteating grin. “What did I tell you?” She shakes her head, lips slightly parted as she drags her tongue over her teeth, radiating fond exasperation. 

  
“ _ Not even as a joke!” _


End file.
